Ted Grant

What Causes War!

Michael
Foot writes in the Tribune
of Friday 14th
April on the question of the cause of the Second World War. He says
in reviewing the book by A. J. P. Taylor: “Had the British
statesmen of the thirties been capable of this exercise they could
easily have stopped the Second World War by discovering what Mr.
Taylor discovered: that Hitlerism right up till 1939, was the most
gigantic bluff of all time.”

Thus Foot
and other “left-wing” Tribunites who think like him are
sufficiently gullible to believe that the Second World War was some
ghastly “accident” that could have been avoided if only “British
statesmen” had been clever enough to understand that Hitler was
“bluffing.”

Thus the
secondary episodes and accidental incidents that have precipitated
war at a particular time in the past are taken out of all proportion
and magnified to become the actual cause
of the war. To write of history this way is to turn the whole
development of mankind into the result of aimless, senseless, bloody
and meaningless decisions of this or that individual.

It is true
that Hitler—and the German imperialism he represented—were not
solely responsible for the war. Just as the First World War was
caused not by the wickedness of the Kaiser, but by the rivalry for
world domination by British and German imperialism, and the impasse
of the capitalist system of that time, so the Second World War was
not the result of the evil intentions of even such a monster as
Hitler. It was caused by the stage of development reached by Europe
at that time and the struggle for markets, raw materials and colonies
between Germany and Britain at that particular period. The Daily
Telegraph pointed out on the eve of the war
that competition between Germany and Britain on the markets of the
world had reached a greater depth and pitch than on the eve of the
1914 war.

Fear
of revolution

But the
rise of Hitler in Germany was caused by the crisis of capitalism in
Germany. Let us never forget that Hitler had the backing of all the
main imperialist powers, including Britain, America and France. The
ruling class of these countries fearing the socialist revolution in
Germany, reluctantly backed the Nazis. This explains the refusal of
the British and French imperialists to take action at the time of the
Nazi occupation of the Rhineland, and of German rearmament. They were
afraid of social revolution
in Germany. They also believed that they could use Hitler for war
against the Soviet Union in order to destroy “Bolshevism”—i.e.
in this context the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union by
means of armed intervention.

It is
impossible to understand the policies of all the powers, including
the policy of Hitler or “bluff”, without understanding the class
basis of society. Allied imperialism backed
Hitler, rearmed Hitler, supported Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese
militarists because of fear of the consequences of their downfall, it
was out of fear of the downfall of the capitalist system that they
“grovelled” before Hitler in Munichism, etc.

“Fairy
tales”

Long
before Hitler was ever heard of, when Hitler was a corporal in the
armies of the Kaiser during the First World War, Marxism had
predicted the inevitability
of a second world war if capitalism was not overthrown. In answer to
socialists like Michael Foot, who were clamouring for disarmament, a
League of Nations, and an agreement between the nations to prevent
war, Lenin dismissed these arguments as “fairy tales” of a very
pernicious and dangerous character. If, he said, the world war would
not be ended by a series of successful socialist revolutions, then
there would inevitably be a second world war, to be followed by a
third and so on till civilisation itself would be destroyed.

In this
respect it must be admitted that Lenin’s sober estimate based on a
class analysis of capitalist society has stood the test of time.

But to
come to the events with which Michael Foot deals. The
non-intervention of the Allied powers in the Spanish revolution was
dictated by similar considerations. They feared the victory of the
republicans, on the basis of the revolutionary movement developing
among the Spanish workers, would lead to the socialist revolution in
Spain. As Lennox-Boyd, recent colonial secretary in the Conservative
government, explained at the time, the butcher Franco was a “gallant
Christian gentleman” fighting the barbaric socialist hordes. It is
not accidental that Churchill praised both Hitler and Mussolini as
upholders of civilisation against the dangers of “communism”.

“Drive
to the East”

Leon
Trotsky in a pamphlet entitled “The coming world war”, predicted
the outbreak of the Second World War just a few months before it
occurred. The war did not take place because Hitler seized Danzig.
Just a few months before the Polish imperialists had joined with the
Germans to grab a slice of Czechoslovakia. The British imperialists
retreated before Hitler’s seizure of Austria and Czechoslovakia
because of fear of the alternatives. They wished to build up Hitler
for his “drive to the East” and a war against Russia. A policy
they partially carried out at the time of Hitler’s attack on
Russia. Truman, then vice-president, and Moore-Brabazon, then a
minister, blurted out the truth of the aims of the Anglo-American
imperialists when they declared that the best result would be the
destruction of both Germany and Russia. In the actual losses and
scale of fighting the war turned into a Homeric struggle between
Germany and Russia.

Defence
of capital

In all
this the real roots of the war can be seen in the class
system of society. The Second World War could
be seen as the inevitable result of the piling up of the
contradictions of capitalist society. The narrow interests of each
“national” capitalist class conflict one with the other. Probably
none of the powers “wanted” war at that particular time and on
those particular issues. Had the imperialists of Britain, France and
America not been so short-sighted from the point of view of their own
interests, and prevented Hitler from seizing Austria, and
Czechoslovakia, possibly war would have been delayed for some months
or years. But it is vital for the advanced workers in the labour
movement to understand that this or that diplomatic deal or
agreement, its arrival or breaking down, is not the cause of war. It
was not the violation of Belgian neutrality that caused British
capitalism to enter the First World War. It was not the seizure of
Danzig—one city and a city populated by Germans at that—that
caused the Second World War… That would be straining at the gnat
and swallowing the camel, of the Austrian and Czech seizures, that
impelled British capitalism to declare war. It was not love of
democracy and hatred for fascism, but pure
defence of the capitalist interests of the British ruling class
that pushed them into their declaration of war.

“Love
of peace”

Hitler’s
Germany in 1939 was faced with the alternative of “expand or die”.
Hitler in the desperate struggle with Britain for declining markets
had declared “export or die”. A similar grim alternative was
being posed by the British ruling class. Hitler had rearmed Germany
and stretched the German productive machine to its fullest extent.
Had war not taken place in 1939 there would have been seven million
of unemployed in Germany and the Nazi system could not have survived.
Within the narrow confines of the German state, the vast productive
machine built by German capitalism, big enough to supply the whole
world with goods, was being stifled. The German market was too small
for the needs of the German imperialists. Hence the attempt to extend
it by seizing the continent of Europe. British imperialist policy on
the other hand was determined by the frantic fear of the British
ruling class of losing their Empire. They stood only to lose by war.
Hence their desperate efforts—to preserve “peace”. They were
like a satisfied burglar who, accumulating spoils, is afraid of the
loot being hi-jacked by rival gangsters. There is no “love of
peace” in this policy. Like the policy of Hitler it was dictated by
the class needs of British capitalism.

Accidental
wars?

Michael
Foot and the historian he so much admires, A. J. P. Taylor, are
searching merely for superficial incidents which explain nothing of
the real cause of war in our epoch.

The lesson
is clear. Imperialism has provoked two slaughters of the peoples. A
third looms ahead for the future—unless the working class draws the
lesson of these events. Wars—especially world wars—are not
accidental. An accident can cause war if all the other conditions for
war are present. But there is no such thing as an “accidental war”.
The only way to end the possibility of such madness as fascism and
war is to destroy the system which inevitably leads to these horrors.